Lonely Home
by LivinJgrl123
Summary: *One-shot* *01x03* *S1/E3* He doesn't like to share his space. Only one other person is allowed in it, besides himself. He shares it with no one else.


**I've own nada.**

* * *

The junkie stands still, glaring down at his bed, and the filthy rags that he calls blankets, that serve as his place to sleep. His fist is still clenching the knife in his hand, hard enough for the skin over his knuckles to become white. His teeth are grinding together, and he slowly feels the anger bleed out of him as he semi-focuses on his breathing. His mind is elsewhere, though.

Those two _girls_.

Who did they think they _were_, asking _him_ to _save_ them? Asking him to _help_ them? Did they really think that he'd risk his own neck more than twice for some girls that had cost him fifty bucks? He snorts. He's not going to regret this decision, throwing them out, he tells himself this, because he's _already_ looking out for more than his own neck.

And if he's not going to risk his _own_ neck, why would _anyone_ think that he'd risk the one living thing that he actually could _tolerate_?

He shakes his head, snorting again, before setting the knife down and collapsing down onto the mattress. The silence sometimes bothers him, and this place - his space - it's usually quiet. It's also pretty lonely, too. It's not much of a home - not compared to where those two girls had probably come from. Oh no, they must have been rich - to afford clothes like that, to have what they had on them. _They _had real homes. _They_ had showers. _They_ were obviously spoiled.

He feels his blood begin to simmer, and sighs, falling back against the tattered mattress, staring up at the ceiling. He takes big, deep, slow breaths, just like _she_ told him to. She always tells him that he needs to work on his anger, she always tells him that she'll be there for him when he starts seeing red because he's sick living in a lonely place, a lonely home - it's what she calls it.

The lonely home, the lonely place where they sleep and hide and eat. She -

He bolts upright, and jumps to his feet, ignoring the dizziness from getting up quickly in favor of looking around, his

senses suddenly straining to pick up on _anything_.

She's not here.

_She's not back yet._

The junkie looks around wildly, his eyes going from being wide, to narrowed, in fear, and in anger.

She'd better not have left him.

He takes in a deep breath, like she always tells him to, but this time, it's shaky, and he thinks his ears might kill him for listening so _damned hard _to the silence, for any indication of her soft footfalls, for the smell that she always carried on her body. She smells good for someone who doesn't have proper showers to bathe in; he likes that smell, but it's starting to fade from the mattress, he's found, and he can feel his anger slowly bubbling up inside his chest as he steps forward towards the entrance to his space - the space he shares with no one else, the space that only she is allowed into, other than him. _He_ was there first, and _she_ will always be the _only_ one allowed in it. He only shares with her, and if she's gone, then he's going to get so angry because _she makes it so it's not so lonely_, living in this place.

And he knows - he _knows_ - that she wouldn't run out on him, even though he's not Mr. Sunshine like she somehow is even though it's in one of the least aggravating ways possible. He knows that she needs him as much as he needs her.

She _needs_ him.

And he can't _function_ without her.

If he wasn't so worried, and fearful, and _angry_, he would have cursed himself for letting the loneliness of his space get to him. He's not dead on the streets - that should be enough to get him through till he _does_ end up on the streets, dead and in an alley somewhere. It should be _enough.__  
_

But it's not.

She's enough.

_She is enough_.

He's about to take another step forward and venture out to look for her, because he knows she likes to come in late, only when she's got something special for him, something that he can use for food instead of more heroin for his addiction. Or she comes back with odd little things that she's taken. The bookshelf isn't full of just all the things _he_ owns himself. Some of them are gifts. Her things are tucked away, safe, under the mattress.

He's about to _move_, to start _running_, when he hears the familiar sound of the piece of metal, from where he'd entered the building, and he halts. He hears it go back into place, and then he can hear the soft thuds of her boots on the ground as she gets closer and closer and closer -

When she comes into sight, the junkie lunges at her. He doesn't really pay attention to the grocery bag she has in her hand or the tiny smile that she sometimes wears on her face when she's found something she knows he'll like, or a treat - like warm food or cold drinks or_ something _that would hold off his cravings for a while.

No, he files it away is mind, and yanks her back into the space - _his_ space - and lets her go, rather unkindly, and she stumbles towards the mattress, but manages to catch herself. She's taking in shaky breaths now, like he had when he'd realized how _late_ she'd been, how evident her absence had been, and she slowly turns around, the bag clutched to her chest as her wide eyes focus on him.

It's silent for a moment - tense, and utterly silent - as he glares at her.

He's more relieved than angry, though.

She didn't leave him.

_She hadn't left ._

_She's come **back.**_

But that doesn't mean he's not angry.

She shifts uneasily from one foot to the other. He sees a new cut on her face - a small one, but it makes him mad. The smudges of grime and dirt on her face, the ones that make her blend into the shadows, are gone, and he has to guess that she snuck in somewhere, to wash her face. And her hair -

Her _hair_.

It's clean. He can see its color, even in the odd light of the lamp that's buzzing gently to the side.

"I got us apples."

Her voice is soft, and tiny smile returns as she extends her arm so they are as straight as posts, rigid, and he can see her hands are shaking. His eyes are narrowed, but his mouth is suddenly filled with saliva, so he steps forward, towards her, and he makes sure his eyes bore into hers. She's short - she's so damn short, barely even five-feet, so it's easy to stare her down. But she doesn't back up; she can't. The backs of her calves are pressed up against the mattress.

He slowly reaches out and takes the rustling, noisy, clearish-white bag from her shaking hands, and peers inside.

His eyes widen, and before he can stop himself, his anger his momentarily forgotten and a smirk spreads slowly across his face because she was _right_.

She'd gotten them apples.

_Four of them._

Two for each.

And there are other things, wrapped things, but he's too distracted by the _god damn apples_ to care about the rest of the bag's contents.

His stomach growls, and his cravings, for the time being, are shoved aside within his body in favor of licking his lips.

But then he suddenly remembers that he was mad.

So he slowly, _reluctantly_, takes his eyes off the bag, and his eyes land on _her_.

Slowly, he sets the bag down, perfectly, because the apples are _shiny_, and so deliciously _red_, and they smell good, _really_ good, but the apples are forgotten, for a few seconds, while his eyes lock onto her, and she swallows. Uneasily.

His smirk vanishes, slowly, and she's watching him like a hawk, even though the bags under her eyes tell him he's going to be

His arm suddenly snaps outwards, and his fingers are curling around her forearm before she can even utter a squeak. He drags her closer to him, and his other hand grips her other forearm. She winces; the rings on his fingers are cutting into her bare skin, and she wishes she'd borrowed his sweatshirt instead of going about the untrustworthy area in a near-ill fitting t-shirt and jeans.

He leans down, so his face is close to hers. He opens his mouth, about to yell at her, for making him think she might have gotten herself killed, when he inhales, and all of his senses are honing in on the scent of her - on the scent of her _hair_, her clear, clean hair.

He leans forward, to the left of her face, and he surprises her by nuzzling the hollow of the area between her throat and her jutting shoulder-blade, inhaling like _that_ is the cause of his addiction, like _that_ is what he _needs_.

His hands are still curled around her arms, but they've lessened their grip, and when he inhales, he lets go a little more. For a junkie who hasn't eaten well in a while, she realizes, his grip still has the ability to bruise.

He's breathing her in - inhaling _her_, because it's like she hadn't used any shampoo to get the filth out of her hair. She smells good, _fantastic_, and it's so familiar and comforting that he forgets how lonely he is when she's not here.

He breaks away from her neck. His eyes are hooded, and he looks sort of dreamy while she stays quiet. Her expression now hold suspicion, one that amuses him to no end as he takes on hand off of her body in favor of picking up the apples and setting them next to the mattress. He turns his attention back to her, and when he inspects her skin, he realizes that, for the most part, she's clean.

She _showered_.

A smirk slowly spreads over the junkie's lips, and she opens her mouth to protest, probably to start their usual banter, because usually, some time after she gets back, they get into a routine where they insult the other without actually meaning it because he needs her company as much as she needs his and it doesn't really make him mad.

But all she gets to do is _squeak _when he suddenly allows his body to fall forward, and her with it. He lands on top of her, on the mattress, and she swears as he rolls off of her, smirking to his heart's content as he reaches for the grocery bag and tosses her an apple, and grabs one for himself - but not before glimpsing a couple candy bars, some medication, and toothpaste.

He hears the crunching of an apple, and he quickly bites into his, savoring the flavor for only a short second before digging into it. They both eat in silence, save for the buzzing of their light and the chomping of their teeth against the fruit that was like heaven in their mouths and in their hands.

By the time he's done and thrown the core to the floor, she's only half way done with hers. She's more patient than he is. He really likes that about her. She keeps him sane. Grounded.

The smirk reappears as he lies down, but not before snagging her around the waist with her arm and pulling her down with him. He lies on his side, and tucks her back into his chest, but he catches the juices from the apple running down her chin in the light.

His arm still over his side, he can feels that the anger, for now, has dissipated. The worry is gone from his mind, and his smirk is still in place, because no matter what, he knows she won't leave him. She can't. He _needs_ her, and she needs _him_.

Soon, she's finished her apple, and she tosses it away from her. She wipes her sticky hands on her jeans, and his arm snakes forward to find one of her shaking hands to clasp his own in.

She falls asleep like that, and soon, he follows, but not before worrying, not before feeling one last spark of anger - because _she's the only one allowed in his pace _- before he shuts his eyes, and wills himself to go to sleep, with a comforting thought stuck in his head as he buries his face into her hair.

The mattress, the rags they call blankets, which they're sleeping atop of, are going to smell like her for a long, long time. Her scent won't fade any time soon, and he's glad.

Because he needs her, and she'd come back.

When she knows that sometimes, when she flees, when he gets high, and she doesn't want to be around him, that she shouldn't come back.

But she does. Always.

_This girl will **always **come back._


End file.
